In a world with an intellectual history of seven thousand years behind it, where do Pakistanis stand, what are they doing, what do they aspire to be, and what ought they to be doing? This Blog takes Notes of all of that ...

Sunday, April 28, 2013

From the electoral to a real victory

[It was the same day last
year when the Chief Justice of Pakistan laid the foundation stone of this movement
for the liberation of ordinary people of Pakistan from the yoke of elite
classes. I dedicate this article to all those extraordinarily valiant lawyers
who are continuing the movement unrelentingly. KA]

Now after the 9th
general elections, there is much lure and a sort of euphoria among the intelligentsia
even beyond Pakistan to dub the results as unprecedented, historic,
revolutionary, and what not. In addition, a revived belief in populism is
gaining strength. This needs to be clearly analyzed and understood because we
as members of civil society ought to be aware of correctly recognizing and meeting
our responsibility. That’s my part of euphoria.

It is being argued that the
mandate that PPP, PML (N), and ANP have got would have been weightier had the
elections been free and fair. Sure, it could have been so, but the fact is that
minus the pre- and post-poll rigging, and the poll-day rigging, in 2002 it was
these same people who voted the PML (Q) into the government. It was the same
people who voted for ‘Roti, Kapra aur Mkaan’ (Food, Clothing and Shelter), in
1970, and came through various elections (including the trickiest local government
elections) voting for this or that thing or for nothing serious.

This must clear the fog of
populism. As we know, and as many surveys and studies suggest, people vote this
or that candidate or party, and then they change their loyalties, for very
different reasons. To lump them together and say it is this or that type of
vote is a mistake. It is deliberate drifting into a populist rhetoric and amounts
to self-delusion. For myself, this time I voted the party that commits itself
to the restoration of deposed judges, while when the elections were announced I
had decided not to vote at all; but then not to let anyone misuse my vote I
thought of casting it but to none. Prior to this, I had been voting for the
party which was considered business-friendly.

No surprise, there is almost
a consensus that this time it was an anti-Musharraf vote which is alternately
being termed on the one hand as anti-military-interference, anti-dictatorship,
anti-PML (Q), anti-violence, anti-terrorism; and on the other hand, as pro-Chief
Justice of Pakistan vote. At best, among other things, it shows our utter discontentedness
with the regime and its policies. To my part of dubbing it and I am not alone
in that, this time it is an anti-system vote.

But let me make my position
clear and stated: we do not know whether all the people who voted, voted for a
change in the system. Or for that matter how many people who voted want some
change in the system. Or we do not know whether the number of people who voted
for a change in the system is greater than those who voted for other reasons. Or,
if somehow we have answers to the above questions, even then the most pertinent
question we need to face concerns with the nature and quality of change people
want.

Ah, but these are the
delicacies of a democratic system the complexities of which are multiplied by
the factors specific to the Pakistani situation, such as personality-worship,
party loyalty, provincial, tribal, ethnic and other affinities, and a host of
other internal and external interventions. Another most disturbingly negative
characteristic of a democratic set-up is the period for which a party or
parties are mandated. No matter it is five, four or three years; what matters
is that once a party is mandated, it is free to do whatever it wishes to do
despite its manifesto/agenda that helped it win votes, even it plays havoc with
the Constitution. But that’s another story what their manifestos are worth. Presently
there is no way to rein in a mandated ruling party. Only that it is to be
judged by the people when after five years it will be again in the field to ask
for another vote provided its life is not cut short by the Pak Army’s arbitrary
actions.

Thus, what we need to focus
on is that the results of February 18 elections under particular circumstances
especially followed by last year’s March 9 NO of Justice Iftikhar Muhammad
Chaudhry, Honorable Chief Justice of Pakistan, have provided us with a rare
opportunity to change the system in Pakistan. Regardless of the debate on the
nature of the present mandate, we in any case must not let go this moment not
taken advantage of. In other words, we in a proactive manner must turn this
opportunity into long term benefit of the people of Pakistan. That’s my
argument.

This long term benefit is
none other than the establishment of the rule of law in Pakistan. No doubt,
within a year it has acquired an uncontroversial status to an extent that those
to whom it is absolutely fatal have come to pay lip service to it. Whether it
is civil and military establishment or their cronies, political and religious
parties or their beneficiaries, or their other allies such as feudal lords,
industrialists, traders; in sum, the elites of Pakistan which have subjugated
the state, judiciary, parliament, and the Constitution of the country to their maximum
profit, will never tolerate the establishment of the rule of law in Pakistan.
In other words, will they never let the people enjoy security of person;
protection to their property; freedom of trade, business and profession;
freedom of movement, speech, assembly, association; freedom to profess and
practice their faith; and above all equality before law, all ensured in the
Constitution.

However, the fate has it that
the same elites have been burdened with this great responsibility. In that
sense, the present vote has a tragic side also. We know how PPP has been and is
dodging the issue of restoration of the deposed judges; how cautious is ANP;
how PML (N) is doing future politics by taking up the issue of the judiciary’s
restoration; how precarious is the APDM grouping, and as regards its member JI,
how sincere it is with the cause, and how lacking in political acumen is TI. We
can never take them on their face value; they are difficultly unreliable.

But what we can do is we must
take the elections results as a strategic advancement towards our goal and keep
exerting our civil society’s pressure on them to restore the deposed judiciary.
This will be the first step towards the dismantling of the rule of dictators
and fake leaders. We know the next steps such as supremacy of the Constitution,
not of the parliament, and rule of law will follow of their own. It is these
steps that will prove to be the greatest checks not only against the overarching
parliament and executive but political parties’ irresponsible governments also.

Now if these political
parties restore the judiciary, well and good; but if they don’t, we the members
of civil society, lawyers, media persons, NGOs, teachers, students and
disgruntled political parties’ workers must keep on with the movement for the
restoration of deposed judiciary. Though the path from the electoral to a real
victory is strewn with every type of seen and unseen hazard and ever newer forms
of dangerous pro-establishment species, but this struggle must continue. We
must realize that after the sufferings of a whole 60 years, we have this
opportunity to break the unholy alliance of elite classes which kept the people
of Pakistan deprived of their fundamental inalienable rights and freedoms by making
the state and its institutions subservient to their interests.

However, this electoral
triumph will transform into a real victory for the ordinary people of Pakistan only
when the fundamental rights given in the Constitution of 1973 are made inviolable.
This will fatally weaken the elitist state in Pakistan, and help emerge a state
ruled by laws respecting every individual citizen and his rights. We must keep
on.

The Blogger

The blogger cherishes a cosmopolitan spirit; he is a moralist; a rationalist; a philosopher; a political philosopher; he believes in Classical Liberalism, as a Theory of Conduct.
He has substantially contributed to the founding of the first free market think tank of Pakistan, Alternate Solutions Institute.
He is a writer who wrote / published dozens of articles on a variety of issues, and is author of 4 books.
He wrote / published short-stories in Punjabi, a regional language of Pakistan.
He composes poetry both in Urdu and Punjabi, and has already published one collection.